Browsing by Author "Torres, Miguel"

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Environmental Control and Life Support for Deep Space Travel
(48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2018-07-08) Stapleton, Thomas; Heldmann, Michael; Torres, Miguel; Bowers, Jason; Corallo, Roger
NASA has outlined plans to transition from the Low Earth Orbit toward Earth independent exploration, evolving habitat capacity to support a trip to Mars, and return home three years later. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) are being developed to enable this vision. UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS) completed the first phase of this advancement, or NextSTEP, in September 2016, and is currently working on the second phase designing a universal ELCSS Module to support the different habitats currently being developed. With focus on the final exploration configuration the team is developing elements that can be used to support future ECLS hardware. The areas of development included transition from the cislunar design to an exploratory ECLS, the development of an Universal ECLSS Pallet design that enhances in-flight maintenance, an Integrated ECLSS Hierachial Control Architecture and the development of an Intelligent System intended to aide in isolating the cause of any fault. The overarching design activities included in this effort define a time dependent strategy enabling deep space exploration.
Environmental Control and Life Support Module Architecture for Deployment across Deep Space Platforms
(49th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2019-07-07) O'Neill, Jonathan; Bowers, Jason; Corallo, Roger; Torres, Miguel; Stapleton, Thomas
NASA has outlined plans for earth-independent exploration starting with crewed habitats in a cislunar orbit and progressing toward crewed landings on the moon and Mars. As several aerospace corporations are developing habitats, NASA proposed developing a universal Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) capable of supporting each habitat with nearly identical systems. UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS) completed the first phase of this development, or NextSTEP, in September 2016, and is scheduled to complete Phase 2 in early 2019. This paper presents recent work by UTAS to develop a more resilient, readily repairable and flexible system capable of installation on a wide variety of habitat platforms. This new ECLSS technology is then used to plot an evolutionary path that takes the open-loop cislunar ECLSS into a closed-loop deep space configuration. The redesign effort of Phase 2 resulted in a modular, universal ECLSS Pallet System that enhances in-flight maintenance. Finally, this paper presents a brief description of the integrated control system developed for this new ECLSS technology. This control system represents a leap forward in the evolution of ECLSS control systems. This paper shows its architecture and how modern cybernetic structures, such as network protocols and applied artificial intelligence, allow for rapid fault detection, isolation and recommissioning.
Environmental Control and Life Support System Developed for Deep Space Travel
(47th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2017-07-16) Stapleton, Thomas; Heldmann, Michael; Torres, Miguel; O'Neill, Jonathan; Scott-Parry, Tracy; Corallo, Roger; White, Kimberly; Schneider, Scott
NASA outlined plans to journey from the current Low Earth Orbit toward earth independent exploration, evolving habitat capacity to support a trip to Mars, a planetary visit, and return home 3 years later. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) are being developed to enable this vision. UTAS completed the first phase of this advancement, or NextSTEP, in September 2016, and is currently working on the second phase design for a universal ECLSS Module to support the different habitats. The team defined an evolutionary path that advances a 90-day Cislunar ECLSS toward a deep space, 1,100-day configuration. Integral to this configuration are: a Universal ECLSS Pallet design that enhances in-flight maintenance and, Integrated ECLSS Control System that enables the use of Machine Learning algorithms, intelligent sensors, and a state-of-the-art cross-pallet communication. The overarching design activities included in this effort define a time dependent strategy enabling deep space exploration.
Leto™ - A Spaceflight Intelligence System
(2024 International Conference on Environmnetal Systems, 2024-07-21) Rohrig, Jake; Kirk, Taylor; Torres, Miguel; Sandidge, Hunter; Wehr, Jackson; Werschey, Jacob
As the commercial space industry accelerates and humanity sets its sights on deep-space destinations, the human capital required to support these bold endeavors grows dramatically. To alleviate the strain on the industry workforce, reduce cost, and optimize operations, Collins Aerospace (an RTX business) is developing a spaceflight intelligence system, Leto™, that integrates with existing and future systems. Leto™ is a full-stack system that uses physics-based models and AI-powered algorithms to continuously monitor and inform ground support personnel and onboard crew about the performance of their vehicle's Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS). Leto™, trained and verified on decades of spaceflight telemetry, surveys a vehicle's ECLSS and provides performance metrics, prognostics, and anomaly detection functions that alert users to system degradation and advise when upcoming maintenance events should occur. Intelligent ECLSS monitoring with Leto™ allows greater insight into system performance while reducing the labor required to do so, letting critical engineering staff focus on value-added activities. This paper introduces Leto™, discusses its capabilities through actual use cases, and concludes with next steps.
A Prototype Torrefaction Processing Unit (TPU) for Human Solid Waste in Space
(48th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2018-07-08) Serio, Michael; Cosgrove, Joseph; Wojtowicz, Marek; Stapleton, Thomas; Torres, Miguel; Ewert, Michael; Lee, Jeffrey
This paper describes work on the development of a Torrefaction Processing Unit (TPU) that can be used to recover moisture and sterilize feces, resulting in a stable, odor-free solid product that can be easily stored or recycled. This TPU is designed to be compatible with the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), now under development by NASA. A stand-alone TPU could be used to treat the waste canister from the UWMS, thus allowing the waste canister to be reused and significantly reducing the number of canisters required on board. The prototype design process included an initial trade-off study that examined the advantages and disadvantages of full integration of the TPU with the UWMS. In the first scenario, the TPU would be incorporated into the base of the UWMS, where the canister would be heated in-situ. In the second scenario, the TPU would be a standalone unit that could be operated independently of the UWMS. While the former approach has the advantage of reducing the overall footprint, it would be more complex and would likely interrupt operation of the UWMS if operated in a batch mode. Consequently, the latter approach of an independent TPU has been retained. In this case, two major design approaches were considered, one which incorporated a Gas Circulation Reactor (GCR) and another which incorporates an In-situ Compaction Reactor (ICR). These were compared based on several factors, including energy consumption, temperature uniformity, crew labor, cleanliness, and consumables.